Saw the adorable, but second-tier Miyazaki film Ponyo.

Accuracy-watch: I know it's just classical music, but there's almost certainly no page turn there for Albert to conveniently show up for in the last few seconds of that Beethoven sonata. No printer worth a damn would have an orphan line of music there. Shame! (end-of-rant)

Came here just to say this! While not being overtly political, it was still constantly connecting with political events quite purposefully to show up the kind of upper class callousness and profiteering that gave us George W., Saddam, and WMD.

Seconding the Ashley & Lucier recommendations. Nice to see them get name dropped 'round here.

Caruso - Session 9? has a decent following and is regularly on "best recent horror" lists

I don't think it's possible to regret re-watching The Shield. Add in the TV Club classic review + Wallflower's articles and you've got your reading right there.

Can I put you in touch with my wife on that one? No amount of nagging, badgering, or patronizing has worked on changing her habits.

Keeping reading books by women, people of color, and foreign authors in translation—at least two-thirds of the fiction I read should meet this criteria.

I typically find something on the darker side of the spectrum to watch via the in-law's Amazon Prime at Xmas time. Last year "Ex Machina," this year "Bone Tomahawk." So far a good streak.

Seems like a good place to remind people of the majesty of the ole "Yelping with Cormac" tumblr.

Lydia Yuknavitch's "Dora: A Headcase." Great punk-y celebration of coming of age, embracing your weird, and fucking with authority figures. Highly recommended, but you should vet the sexual content before gifting it.

It can be two things. One they tell you in college-level ed classes, the other embedded by the illuminati.

I'm not kidding, I got down to the end of article to see the tally of comments sitting at 666. http://www.screencast.com/t… [just an innocuous screen shot]

Seriously wounded. Prob still enough to provoke razing what remains of non-Assad Syria to the ground.

I'm somewhere between TJM and Alex. There were glimmers of something decent in the subculture / conspiracy that was being set up. But the writing isn't good, and the plotting is hacky. You'll be ok skipping it.

I read it every couple years. It used to be a reminder to stay vigilant. Now I just want to shut my eyes tight and hope that it can't go as wrong as it feels right now.

I got to Bob's a little late, and I cherry-picked my entry points perfectly. "Mother Daughter Razor Laser" (especially the T2 dream sequence), the riff on "Dog Day Afternoon," and "Sheesh Cab, Bob" got me hooked immediately. "Lifting up the skirt of the night…"

We named our turkey Lance. We've been talking to him. We're going to watch "My Neighbor Totoro" on Thanksgiving and hope for his miraculous rise from the oven to carry us to a place of simple whimsy in this melancholy world.

It's like clubbing a baby seal…only electric!

Hey, are you trying to imply that they might bang out the socio-political equivalent of Hamlet? You crazy ape!